A judicial council on Thursday unanimously ordered five board members of Olympiakos FC, among them its president Vangelis Marinakis, to stand trial on misdemeanor charges, a case linked to hooligans riots resulting into the death of a police officer in 2023.
The five board members are the president of the Piraeus-based Olympiacos soccer club, Vangelis Marinakis, Olympiacos vice president (and Piraeus mayor), Yiannis Moralis, Olympiacos CEO Dimitris Agrafiotis and two club vice presidents, Kostas Karapapas and Michalis Kountouris,
They are accused of financing and supporting a criminal organization linked to a violent incident in the Piraeus suburb of Renti, which resulted in the death of police officer Giorgos Lyngeridis in 2023.
The 31-year-old police officer was fatally injured during hooligans riots after an Olympiacos-Panathinaikos match in Athens in December 2023. He succumbed to his injuries caused by a naval flare on December 27, twenty days after the injury.
The Judicial council ruling acquits nine defendants in the case, including the defendant accused as the physical perpetrator of the murder of the police officer, due to pending litigation, since his trial is underway in Piraeus.
Marinakis & Olympiakos FC furious
A furious response to the decision came from the President of Olympiacos FC and the football team itself.
“This is not the first time that political and economic interests have attempted to hold me hostage. They will fail again,” Vangelis Marinakis posted on the FC website and had it also spread through the newspapers and their websites, as well as television stations he owns.
“I am not afraid, I am not blackmailed, I am not negotiating, I am not giving in, I am not surrendering. The truth will shine again. Democracy will prevail,” Marinakis wrote among others.
Speaking of “a shame for Democracy”, Olympiacos president directly accused the Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis as responsible for the conspiracy against him.
“Under the state of panic, the prime minister, together with the scandalously benefited and dependent on the Mitsotakis system media crutches, are attempting to blackmail me and hold me hostage, once again using Justice as instrument, Marinakis noted (full statement in Greek in in.gr)
Olympiacos FC took a stand against the referral of the team’s management to trial also with a harsh statement speaking of “political persecution” of its president and informing everyone that, on the one hand, they have nothing to do with the accusations, and on the other hand, they will mobilize every legal process in Greece and Europe.
